By Euan Rocha
TORONTO, July 27 (Reuters) - Deal-making activity in
Canada's venture capital and private equity arena surged in the
first half of 2015, driven by a spate of financings in the tech
start-up space and large investments in energy assets, data from
Thomson Reuters showed on Monday.
The data indicates there was C$636 million ($488.48 million)
in venture capital invested in 143 deals in the second quarter,
a sum that was 15 percent higher than that invested by VC firms
in the first quarter.
This propelled VC investments in the first half of this year
to C$1.19 billion, a 33 percent increase from the first half of
last year and the strongest first half for VC funding in Canada
since 2002. (FOR DETAILED VC REPORT: http://bit.ly/1IpJ4tO)
Despite the surge, the average size of VC deals in Canada
continues to lag far behind those in other countries. The
average VC funding round size in Canada now stands at about C$4
million, far behind the United States at C$17 million, the
United Kingdom at C$13.7 million, and Israel at C$10 million.
The data shows deal sizes are improving though, with 11 C$20
million plus deals in the first half of 2015, compared with just
5 in the same period in 2014.
The two biggest financings in the space both came in the
second quarter, with Toronto-based technology start-up Real
Matters raising some C$60 million in May, and Toronto-based
biotech start-up Northern Biologics, which is backed by Versant
Ventures, raising C$36 million in late April, via a tie-up with
Celgene Corp CELG.O .
PRIVATE EQUITY SURGE
On the private equity side, the first half of 2015 marked
the strongest start to a year since 2007 with C$11.4 billion put
to work by large pension funds and big private equity firms. The
205 deals is a record high for the first half of the year.
(FOR DETAILED PE REPORT: http://bit.ly/1U2wuVx)
The biggest deal in the space in 2015 came in late June when
Cenovus Energy CVE.TO , Canada's second-largest independent oil
producer, agreed to sell its portfolio of oil and gas royalty
properties to Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan for about C$3.3
billion. ID:nL3N0ZG3IM ID:nL1N0Z42C7
The data also showed a huge surge in the level of outbound
PE activity, with Canadian PE firms and pension funds investing
a whopping C$95 billion outside of Canada during the first half
of 2015, up from C$3.7 billion in the same period in 2014.
ID:nL1N0ZI13U ID:nL1N0YV0E0 ID:nL1N0YV2Y8
($1 = 1.3020 Canadian dollars)